In chemistry and the biological sciences, laboratory instruments and techniques exist for separating a composite material, such as a soil sample or a blood sample, into its component materials. Typically, the isolation step is performed as a preliminary step to further testing that centers around the characteristics of the isolated component.
It is often a difficult and cumbersome task to isolate one element of a composite material. One typical approach is to employ a centrifuge to separate composite materials into the individual elements. In practice, a lab technician can place the composite material into a test-tube-like container. The lab technician inserts the container into the centrifuge and activates the centrifuge for sufficient time to separate out the element or elements of interest. Upon completion of a centrifugal separation, the lab technician removes the container and extracts from the stratified sample the element or elements.
Although centrifugal separation can work well, it is typically labor-intensive and often poorly suited for isolating small particulate matter, such as cellular material. Moreover, the centrifugal technique fails to provide a separation process that readily yields samples with known concentrations of a targeted element.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide laboratory instrumentation and processes that generate samples with known concentrations of a selected particulate material.
It is a further object of the invention to provide laboratory instruments and processes that detect samples having low concentrations of a targeted material.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide laboratory instrumentation and processes that provide measures of the integrity of a performed diagnostic analysis.
It is still a further object of the invention to provide instrumentation and techniques that provide information representative of the severity of a disease.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.